Psychometric Musings
by Kathryn Anne
Summary: Give Miho a glass of wine, and she can get rather chatty. New chapter 5-26.
1. Prologue

This series is in progress! It's intended to be a collection of linked "monologues" for Karasuma, each set at a specific point in WHR. I don't write in order, so please pay attention to the notes at the beginning of each piece. When I finish, I'll go back and re-organize them chronologically.  
  
Thanks go to the UnS gang (for inspiration and good times) and my roommate (who kicks much ass as a beta.)  
  
I do not own WHR, and I am not making any money from this little venture into storytelling. You are welcome to archive this story, but please email me beforehand (kawestervelt_at_hotmail_dot_com). 


	2. Black Coats, White Hats

**Psychometric Musings #1  
****Black Coats, White Hats**

**Summary: Hunters, the hunted, and a growing unease. Set during "Loaded Guns" or "Time to Say Goodbye"  
****Rating: PG**

I've worked with the man for over five years. You'd think I'd understand him by now. You'd be wrong.  
  
I came to the STN-J as a child, barely older than Robin, and intrigued my by new abilities. My Inquisition had been relatively mild – after all, psychometry isn't a Craft. Not one that can cause much harm, anyway. And I liked the idea of working to restore order, to protect people. Having an ability no one else could use ... was an added bonus. There isn't a woman alive who isn't drawn to secrets, at least a little bit. I settled down quickly into the routine of Hunting, eager to do my job well.  
  
Of course, I was never partnered with him. He's a combat specialist; I'm more involved in the investigative side of things. All things considered, the higher-ups decided to keep me as more of a team member, rather than a leader. That was fine with me, but it did mean that I never spent much time with Amon. Even with my experience with emotions – and believe me, I'm probably more than halfway to psychologist status by now – I could never really read him.  
  
None of us knew what really led to Kate's Hunt. We saw her becoming more and more secretive, more and more unbalanced. I don't pry, as a rule – but there were times when I couldn't help touching certain objects after she had handled them. And the more powerful, primal emotions tend to **leak**, if you know what I mean. I could feel her anger and despair, her sense of helplessness – but the Craft will do that to you. Why do you think there are so many Witches, and so few Hunters? Even Craft-using Hunters become ... distorted ... with time. As their abilities fade with age, the effect lessens, but it's what drives Witches mad. I suppose you could call it a "darkness of spirit." I've sensed that darkness in those we've Hunted, but I must have overlooked it in Kate. Perhaps I wanted to believe that because she was a Hunter, a "white hat" if you will, that she would be okay.  
  
Amon didn't, though. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but the man's understanding of human nature – especially its less savory side – is almost as good as mine, and he has an ironclad sense of justice. I don't know whether he told the higher-ups about Kate, or vice versa, but the effect was the same. I've never seen him show mercy – or any human emotion – towards a witch.  
  
And then there's Robin – poor child, she's fallen hard for him. Tall, dark, and mysterious is a combination that's hard for any woman to resist, and those brooding good looks of his certainly don't help. Hey, I'm a woman, I have hormones too. I've learned to tune them out most of the time, but he makes **me** weak in the knees occasionally. Thank God I'm old enough to know that men like him are Bad News. Poor Robin hasn't learned that yet, and I worry about her.  
  
I see myself in that child, sometimes. If Amon's Hunting her ... well, I'll have to pick a side, won't I? And that's not something I look forward to doing.


	3. In Absentia

**Psychometric Musings #2  
****In Absentia**

**Summary: The center cannot hold. Set during "Heal the Pain" or "Dilemma."  
****Rating: PG**

So, what do you do when things fall apart?

You pull them back together and hold on with your teeth, that's what. That's all I've been doing for the past six weeks, and ... I don't even know why I'm doing it.

Michael and I are fine. Sakaki's leg will heal, and Doujima seems to actually be making an effort to be useful. But without Robin and Amon ... and we don't even know if they're dead or alive.

Of course, the idea of Amon being dead is completely ridiculous. I've worked with him for over five years, and that man has more lives than a cat. I swear, he was James Bond in a former life. He can take the most horrendous risks, and come out without dirtying that goddamn trenchcoat, sauntering in for the kill with his signature cold stare. It's incredibly irritating, especially when I (still!) screw up on a regular basis. Who the hell wants to work alongside Mr. Perfect?

I'm not fooling anyone, am I? I'll tell you a secret. Amon and I used to have coffee together, every once in a while. It wasn't anything like dating, or even a friendship – we'd just sit in Harry's, being silent together. Sometimes he'd ask me a question about one case or another, usually something about the Witch's motivations. Sometimes I'd talk to him about the way the other members were performing, and how we should handle the next Hunt. In a way, we were really one another's partners. He got insight into people from me, and I learned tactics and leadership ... under his wing, if you will.

And now I'm frantically pulling every memory of those late-night sessions out of my head, and using them to **glue** myself together. The STN-J needs a leader, and it looks like I've been tapped. (As much affection as I have for Sakaki and Doujima ... no. Not possible.) But I still look out my window at night and wish he were here. He can't be dead. I'd know if he were.

Who would have thought I'd actually **miss** him?


	4. Paternoster

**Psychometric Musings #3  
Paternoster **

**Summary: Are redemption and damnation really two sides of the same coin? Set during "Time to Tell."  
Rating: PG  
****A/N: This piece places religious (specifically Catholic) metaphors in a philosophical context. You have been warned. The ending verses are from an anonymous 15th century English lyric, and can be found in _The Oxford Book of English Verse_.**

_Kyrie eleison_. Lord, have mercy. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. All my life, I have existed in a Purgatory that I created for myself, have worked tirelessly to expunge and atone for my sins. There seem to be so many of them ... the sin of what I am, what I carry, what I may yet become. Every person goes through the Fall, and carries his share of the guilt for that..

Robin wasn't the only Catholic girl to become a Hunter.

I was a Witch. I wielded a power that humans were never meant to use, one that came from the fallen angels – and there were times when, God help me, I enjoyed using that power. How can I ever atone for that? What penance can there be, what absolution can be given to one whose existence is the essence of the Original Sin – the desire for unnatural power?

When SOLOMON found me, I embraced their viewpoints wholeheartedly. I believed that when a Craft manifested itself in a person, that person would ultimately be destroyed by it. As a Craft-user, there was only one way to keep my humanity alive, and that was to become a Hunter. I took my powers and used them to atone for the sins of my kind.

Now – I'm becoming one of them. There is no difference, there never was. All those years, I clung to the hope that I could reclaim my humanity, could **become **a beloved child of God. And it was all for nothing. Lies, dust and ashes.

The STN-J is falling to bits – as hard as I try, I can't hold it together any longer. I can feel my powers changing, the edges of my mind beginning to fray into the surrounding darkness. The wages of sin ... all the Acts of Contrition in the world can't help me now.

Father, forgive me for what I must do. _Sancta Maria, mater Dei, ora pro nobis ..._

Robin, forgive me.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. It **cannot** be true. We cannot be the Chosen People. Why would God give his children such terrible gifts?

He called her "Eve of Witches." As Eve committed the first sin and caused the Fall, so did she give birth to all of us, and make the Redemption possible. Maria ... Robin's mother ... is it blasphemy to think that this child could be **our** salvation? That a girl who can kindle the fires of Hell can bring Witches back into their birthright as children of God?

Isaac had twin sons; one was blessed, the other cursed. Eve's second son died at the hands of his brother. In such a long, terrible story, can this one child really be our Hope?

_Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond,  
__Four thousand winter thought he not too long,  
__And all was for an apple, an apple that he tooke,  
__As clerkes finden written in ye booke._

_Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been,  
__Ne had neuer our lady ybene heuenye quene.  
__Blessed be the day that apple taken was,  
__Therefore we maun singen:  
__Deo gracias!_


	5. Old Maid

**Psychometric Musings #4  
Old Maid **

**Summary: "Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses" – Dorothy Parker. Set during "Loaded Guns."  
Rating: PG  
A/N: This one's for MannyPenPen. I'm a little nervous about it, so please let me know if you think our girl Miho is OOC. **

I cannot believe that little shit called me old.

Oh, I'm sorry, forgive my language – but sometimes I get tired of being "Karasuma-san" all the time, when he and Michael and Yurika bicker like siblings. It's partly my fault, I know. I've deliberately cultivates the older-sibling image (well, someone has to around here! Amon certainly doesn't put much energy into human interaction.) And I suppose I do act quite a bit older than my colleagues. (Amon excluded, drat the man.) But I am **far** from being old and dried-up!

I started at STN-J when I was younger than Robin. Solomon likes to get its hunters as young as possible. Maybe it's because people whose Crafts have just awakened are often frightened and unstable, and more likely to accept Solomon's guidance. Perhaps young people are easier to recruit and train, and more likely to throw themselves into their work without questioning the way things are -- just look at my partner. Maybe it's just that the younger you are, the fewer ties you have and the easier they are break. This job doesn't leave much time for an outside life.

Not to mention, when I'm actually in a relationship, my Craft tends to cause all sorts of trouble. I know, I know – everyone wants to know what his or her partner is thinking **all the time**. Let me tell you, you're better off leaving it alone.

That isn't to say that I've never ... used my powers for less than noble purposes. It's rather convenient to be able to accept a drink from someone and tell, immediately, whether or not he's attracted to me. I can separate the wheat from the chaff a lot more easily, if you know what I mean. And when I'm with a lover – well, never mind that part! But all these were with men who didn't know about my powers. If they **had** known, they'd have run away as fast as they could. I can't say I blame them.

When you really think about it, my Craft is a terrible invasion of privacy, almost a violation. People spend most of their lives carefully guarding their emotions, deciding whom to let in and whom to keep out. I can slip though any barrier with a touch. Heady stuff – and one hell of a power to have over other people.

I guess I don't blame Solomon for recruiting me, for not letting me run around loose. If I face temptation every day as a Hunter, how much worse would it be as an unknown Witch? Sometimes, though, I'd trade it all for one week as a normal woman.

Maybe then I wouldn't be lying here alone.


	6. Tree of Knowledge

**Psychometric Musings #5  
Tree of Knowledge**

**Summary: Ignorance is bliss. Set (tentatively!) post-"Sign of the Craft"  
****Rating: PG  
A/N: And I thought the first few were hard! This one damn near killed me, plus it turned out to be inconsistent with "Old Maid." However, I like it too much to scrap it entirely. The ending quotation is from Genesis 1:16-17 (New Revised Standard Version.)  
****For meris ann, who encourages me.**

When I was a girl, I used to read fantasy novels. You know the type – the sword-and-sorcery books in which the heroine has a special Gift she must come to terms with. She always ends up on a journey to learn about her powers, and then she returns to save her world and accept her rightful place within it.

Now, more than ever, I know that those books were a lie.

There are plenty of Craft-using Hunters that Solomon considers a higher 'rogue risk' than me. Compared to telekinesis or an elemental Craft like Robin's, my 'scrying' must seem relatively benign. I certainly can't use it to kill or maim, or as an aid to stealing. If I were to be Hunted, I would have no defense, none at all. Sometimes, though, I think mine is the most corrupting of them all.

The thing most people don't realize is that human beings are inherently self-centered creatures. _Everyone, consciously or unconsciously, wants the world to revolve around him or her._ We tend to shape our own perception of ourselves based on what other people think of us. And so, we always want to **know** how others see us. My Craft allows me to tap into that, to invade someone's thoughts. I rarely find anything good there.

At first it was almost a game. I wander around a bar or a bookstore, picking up items and reading what I could from them. It was so easy to learn that the guy on the corner barstool just wanted to drink himself into unconsciousness, while his friend was more interested in not going home alone. The woman who has just put down _The Handmaid's Tale_ was pregnant and unhappy about it. The girl browsing the poetry shelves was caught up in her first great love affair ... and so on.

Soon I started reading people I knew. That was more troubling, because most of them were people I cared about, and I wanted their thoughts to be about **me**. Instead, I learned about my mother's frustrations, my parents' fights, my elder brother's restlessness and boredom. Fear and pain left deep stains on objects, and I started to draw back, to shield myself. But I still wanted to test out my powers, and I only had myself to experiment on. That was the worst of all.

There are places in the human mind, where conscious thought has no place. Once I looked into those places ... there was nowhere left to run. I pulled away from emotion, channeled all my energy into my work, because I had seen what was within my heart, and it terrified me. All the indoctrination during my SOLOMON training was unnecessary after that shock. Classes with Father O'Reilly, my Inquisition – all child's play after the horror of that one moment, when I learned what I could become.

_And the Lord commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die._


	7. A Walk in the Park

**Psychometric Musings #6**  
**A Walk in the Park**

**Summary: Getting to know her. Post-"Stubborn Aesthetics."  
****Rating: G  
****A/N: This is the one I've been dreading – after figuring out how the series changed Miho, I get to backtrack and write her as she was in the beginning! Please tell me what you think – it's the only way I can make this better! Constructive criticism equals better writers, which equal better stories ... which make for happier readers.  
****For Misora, who gives wonderfully helpful feedback (and whose fic is amazing!)**

I'm not sure what to think about that girl.

On one hand, I've seldom enjoyed an afternoon with a coworker more. I'm not used to spending time with other young women – who has time, with this job? It's been my life since I was her age – and Robin was surprisingly pleasant company. Quiet but kind, and with "sincerity" written in every word and every motion. It's obvious that the child is eager to fit in here, and anxious to do well. Still, she seems a bit off-balance in her new surroundings.

The fact that Amon is keeping her at arm's length certainly doesn't help matters. I've worked with him long enough to know about his distaste for Craft-users, but his behavior around Robin puzzles me. It's almost as if he's evaluating not only her powers and fighting technique, but her trustworthiness and mental stability. He's the team leader. It's his responsibility to know each of our strengths and weaknesses, in order to use us most efficiently. Still, he rarely concerns himself with a Hunter's personal problems, as long as we do our jobs.

That part of the deal generally falls to me. I'm the only other S-class Hunter here, and more or less Amon's second-in-command. My unofficial job is to keep us working smoothly as a team, which means understanding each Hunter's personality and how he or she thinks. Sometimes that's easy, as with Sakaki – adrenaline addict, impatient, a fighter. Other times it's nearly impossible – case in point: our enigmatic leader. Most of the time, though, scrying combined with a certain amount of natural insight into the way people's minds work usually lets me get a pretty accurate idea of someone within an hour or two.

So, what's my impression of her? She's certainly dedicated to her job. The Italian branch of Solomon doesn't mess around when it comes to training Hunters. If they sent her to us, it's because HQ was confident in her abilities and her ideology. Otherwise ... she would have been Hunted.

Her power is certainly formidable, and rather unnerving. If she made a mistake with her aim, she could incinerate someone in the blink of an eye. She could destroy buildings, trains, cars and their passengers ... if she ever came unhinged, it would be a nightmare. If she lost her focus or her control slipped, even for a moment – I can understand why Amon is concerned. A rogue Hunter with that kind of power would be nearly impossible to contain and defeat.

As for the child herself ... Robin is still a mystery. There's an innocence about her, a kind of naivete about the world and the evils it contains. It's clear to me that, though she's seen what Witches can do, she still grieves for each one we Hunt. I would have expected a master Craft-user to be ... harder. More cynical. Instead, she has the sensitivity of a child, and the insight of someone much older.

But the thing that really catches in my throat is how **eager** she is, how anxious for us to accept her. Alone in Japan ... the girl wants friends, not just coworkers. Amon's coldness seems to genuinely hurt her. It's as if – she's incapable of anything except complete honesty, so she has no armor. No defenses.

If so, that child is going to have a hard time here. I shouldn't say this – it's unprofessional – but my heart goes out to her.


	8. Eidolon

**Psychometric Musings #7  
****Eidolon**

**Summary: "But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood / Is Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan." – W.B. Yeats. Post-series.  
****Rating: PG  
****A/N: No, the series is not done. Are you kidding? I'm too much of a goddamn perfectionist for that. Anyway, off we go. The poem is at the end, and Cathleen-ni-Houlihan is the traditional symbol of Ireland.  
****For shelter, who drew me a bee-yoo-tee-full picture. Go see it at Harry's. It's in the thread marked "Psychometric Oekeki."**

I wonder where she is now.

Where _they_ are, I should say. Because one thing I do know: Amon is going to stick to Robin like glue, whether she likes it or not. Part of me didn't see that coming at all. The other part ... knew it all along.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound like a mystic or one of those new-agers that believe in psychic bonds and crystal energy. I mean, I'm a Witch and a psychic one at that, but that stuff is pure nonsense. But I have a **feeling** about those two. You can call it intuition, or character knowledge, or just plain wishful thinking, but it's there. And I know that, somewhere, they're all right.

You want me to explain it? I'll try – but no promises. Like I said, it's an internal thing. It has to do with ... well, with everything that's happened since I joined the STN-J. No, it goes back further than that.

In nearly six years of being associated with SOLOMON, I've never once seen a Witch's power used purely for good. Even Kurusawa had to take one life in order to save another. Telekenesis, psychometry, elemental Crafts, any kind of telepathic ability – it seemed that never led to anything but misery. The humans that had them ended up either twisted, like the Witches we hunt, or disillusioned outsiders like me. Either way, the Craft was a burden, not a gift. It led to temptation, to corruption. To sin.

And then I met Robin, and I was astonished. For a girl with so much power to have such an inner purity ... it was like she shone. As if, no matter how many temptations she faced or how much ugliness she confronted, she was incorruptible. Unstained, untouched. Before Robin, I never though a Craft-User ... could have any innocence left.

She's not just a girl, and she's not just some genetically-modified super-witch. Or even the Eve of Witches. She's – she's what makes it possible for us to fight. She's our leader and our savior, but she's also what allows us to fight.

Robin is, quite simply, our symbol. She isn't just a standard: she's the banked flame in the heart, the image of purity that shines amid all our failings. She's the one Witch I've ever known who possesses that inner peace that we all long for. She's proof of the goodness, the **rightness** inside all of us. Robin's power is greater than all of ours put together, and she's been able to turn it into something clear and shining and **true**. A weapon, yes – but also a challenge, and a standard.

She's Joan of Arc, Helen, Mary – every woman who was herself, and yet more than herself. One fifteen-year-old girl, and our symbol. Our image of truth. Our eidolon. Our Hope.

_The old brown thorn-trees break in two high over Cummen Strand,  
Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand;  
Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies,  
But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes  
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.  
  
The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea,  
And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say.  
Anger that are light noisy clouds have set our heats abeat;  
But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet  
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.  
  
The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-na-Bare,  
For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air;  
Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood;  
But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood  
Is Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan._

– W. B. Yeats, "Red Hanrahan's Song about Ireland" 


End file.
